


A Deal With God

by aishiteita



Category: Magic Kaito, 名探偵コナン | Detective Conan | Case Closed
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Reality, Alternate Universe - Noir, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Car Accidents, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, M/M, Partners in Crime, Slow Burn, Unreliable Narrator, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-02
Updated: 2020-11-13
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:55:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 17,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26781745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aishiteita/pseuds/aishiteita
Summary: Kuroba Kaito, underground informant, has never expected a federal agent to request his services.(Between cold reality and intrusive montages of his own memory, Kaito realizes that none of it matters, in the end. Imprinted in the scenes of his own mind is something bare, pure in its want to hold onto everything. A car leads to the docks as long as a river leads to sea. Desire consumes everything in its wake like an act of profound mercy.)It's hard to say anything but yes, when it comes to Shinichi. Then and now.
Relationships: Kudou Shinichi | Edogawa Conan/Kuroba Kaito | Kaitou Kid
Comments: 15
Kudos: 49





	1. I Saw A Savior

**Author's Note:**

> HELLO im here to redeem myself after the mess that was my first dcmk fic skjhslkjgehwekg  
> this is even messier !!!!!!!!! but i couldnt get the idea out of my head since.. feb 2020. ive been in a hannibal/crash (1996)/other psychosexual drama movies brainrot and it has spiraled into this giant monster and im super happy to finally have it out there oh my god . all the chapters r done! it'll be regularly updated as i go through the whole thing and edit things here n there 
> 
> this is my first time writing something this dark ! appropriate warnings will be given prior to chapters i find really Violent etc. and the start/end lines will also be there for those who'd like to skip :')) 
> 
> of course, i have No Clue how intelligence agencies function in japan specifically, or the extreme details of how organized crime happens/gets apprehended there. a lot of this is.. wikipedia info used Liberally ! at the risk of sounding like ffnet author notes i seriously do not claim any of this info to be 100% true skjfhslkge 
> 
> SPECIAL SHOUTOUT TO MY BETA FOR THIS IE THE BEST BETA IN THE WORLD JUST THE COOLEST BC [VIVI](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hugme/pseuds/hugme) U R A CHAMP FOR GOING THROUGH THIS SKJDHFLSKHGLESK  
> ALSO BIG THANKS TO MY SISTER, KEREN, AND XIA for bearing w my ramblings abt this fic, and all the ego boosts. I LOVE U ALL
> 
> ps. whats a fic by me without its own [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1Mg4LRcVrcQEBjOb7ooiIc?si=rl9yIRChTP-RiEpAfF45Hg) ?

**prologue.**

**I Saw A Savior**

Ekoda High’s second-floor storeroom was home for the school’s only literature club. It had remained open despite being short on members; two names listed instead of the required five, no outstanding achievements recorded. It was quiet when Kaito entered, the rustle of foliage loud coming through wide-open windows. Shinichi was sleeping on the room’s lone table. His blazer had fallen onto the floor, forcing him awake with a shudder. He turned his head around to lazily grin at Kaito.

“How’d we do on the club evals?” Shinichi asked.

Kaito leaned against the table, waving a piece of paper for Shinichi to catch. He made no move to unfold the hands bolstering his head. Kaito sighed. “I don’t know how you do it, but we got an A-minus. Again.”

“I found a really nice spot last weekend,” Shinichi said, ignoring Kaito as he stretched his arms out.

“Where is it?”

The curtains rose gently in the late spring breeze as Shinichi sat up to look Kaito in the eye.

“Past the bay bridge, just before the warehouses start.” Knowing Kaito won’t ever say no, he asked anyway, “Come with me?”

“That’s far.”

“It’s my birthday.”

“That was two weeks ago.”

Out of excuses, Shinichi picked up his blazer and exited the room without a word. He wasn’t being cross, Kaito thought, following at his own pace after he tidied the chairs. Shinichi waited for him by the shoe lockers. The late afternoon sun glimmered along the surface of Tama River, stagnant while the water ran its course toward the sea. They walked along the bay to Yokohama’s docks, with its tall, grey platforms and blaring horns.

Shinichi’s ‘really nice spot’ referred to a small pier hidden snugly between two rows of sailing boats. Shoremen were nowhere to be found as the wharf’s clock struck seven; the tide was still low enough for Kaito to look past Yokohama Bay’s bridge without having to stand. Shinichi had taken to lying down instead, sun-warmed hair ticking Kaito’s wrist.

“This is alright,” Kaito commented.

Shinichi hummed in agreement. “Beika was too far from the sea,” he said.

“At least the air won’t smell like fish in the morning.”

That earned a short laugh from Shinichi. When he stopped, Kaito could feel fingertips ghosting along the length of his thigh. He glanced down to find Shinichi staring at him. To be constantly put under scrutiny was something Kaito had grown used to in his company. “Something on your mind?” he asked anyway.

“Nothing important.” Shinichi smiled before retrieving his hand. “Say, do you think man is haunted?”

“Haunted? By what?”

“Things. Anything and everything.”

“You’re asking me weird questions again, Kudo.”

A seagull cried behind them, pecking at air before flying up to rest on a flagpole. Despite his placid expression, Kaito could tell Shinichi had been expecting a genuine answer, hands folded nervously across his stomach.

“Then let’s go about it this way—what would haunt you?”

Shinichi got up and walked to the pier’s edge, back facing the ocean and the setting sun beyond it. He shakily balanced himself on a rusted post, arms spread out, still grinning the whole while. Kaito didn’t have time to curse the moment Shinichi let his foot slip, and he sprinted forth to yank the other away from the water. The force of his pull had them reeling back painfully; Kaito’s head hit concrete as Shinichi’s knocked into his chin, splitting the corner of his bottom lip. He couldn’t feel any of it.

“The fuck was that for?” Kaito gasped, heart caught in his throat.

“I should ask you the same.” Shinichi pushed himself off to sit in Kaito’s lap. “It’s just water. I can swim, you know.”

The sun had fully set while the sea moaned around them as it rose in height, boats beating their hulls against each other to rattle the pier’s metal railings. Shinichi gently tapped Kaito’s chest with his knee. “Nothing to say, Kuroba?”

There was no winning against Shinichi when he wanted something, but Kaito knew himself to be just as obstinate. Cold ocean winds whipped his bare arms as he leaned forward, anchoring himself on Shinichi’s shoulders. The lips against his were warm and complacent enough to part with a tilt of his head. They tasted of copper.

No one had borne witness to this, not even themselves; nothing but a rapid pulse thumping red beneath the eyelids. The sea around them had turned black .

“I think you’re bleeding,” Shinichi told Kaito quietly, rubbing blood off his front teeth.

They didn’t kiss for a second time, distracted by a distant screech of tires. Kaito peeked past the boats like a moth to flame, watching a lone red car burn in a beacon of its own flames, smoke trailing darker than the starless sky above.  It may just be his wounded mouth, but Kaito thought the sea smelled like charred iron . Shinichi stuck close behind him. Kaito wondered if he was just as simple, to be mesmerized by a wreckage collapsing unto itself at the far end of the bridge. Wailing sirens followed shortly after to barricade the site.

Between the red car, the siren lights, and the rusted bridge, it was hard to tell where the blood had started from. Kaito naïvely thought looking would help him arrive at an answer. The questions had long left by then.

“It’s getting late,” Shinichi said, dusting dirt off his pants. “Let’s go. I know a way around the bridge.”

“Okay.”

***

Kaito had not shown up to school the next day, or the day after, and the day after that. Ekoda High’s only literature club was dissolved before summer break had started, a single name remaining on its register. Shinichi sat alone in the second-floor storeroom.

***

All this had been seventeen years ago.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pls feel free to scream at/with me on [twt](https://twitter.com/tinycpr) !


	2. The Saints Announce the End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fyi PSIA (Public Security Intelligence Agency) is an agency in japan thats... not rly fbi equivalent but kinda like that! and Geidai is a ..prestigious (???) arts academy/university ! 
> 
> and i guess they'd be 34-35 here, since the prologue was set 17 yrs ago :') aged up .. sincerely just to have them fit the content of this fic . im sorry there will be no diddling between the two of them dskjfhslkjgehlkesg

**i.**

**The Saints Announce the End**

“Thank you for that, Kido, I’ll have the funds sent over tomorrow.”

Kaito placidly watches his client deflate in the restaurant’s wine-washed lighting. He had been sweaty the entire meeting, his hair an oil spill of anxieties that Kaito should be bearing instead. But the deal is done, earlier than expected as the clock shows five minutes to seven in the evening. A thick hand with clubbed fingers extends itself to him, and Kaito shakes it firmly with a methodical smile.

“Entirely my pleasure, sir.” 

He indulges the client in lighthearted banter over the bill and waves politely as the cab takes the man away, back home to an address printed in one of Kaito’s files. Early spring is hardly different from its precursor as heavy rain crashes against the restaurant’s canopied entrance, obscuring a young couple across the street from Kaito’s view. He bids the front staff a good evening and slides into his own cab, the financial district zooming by in fat globules and glowing tails of gold across tempered glass.

“It’s been really wet the past few days, huh, sir?” The driver smells faintly of nicotine; coke nails the only thing visibly discernable in the car’s void.

“Unexpected, but pleasant,” Kaito replies in good humor. He has taken to staring at the driver’s nails, cracking his stiff neck to thoughts of white powder crumbling from sloppy consumption, its excess dusting the driver’s slacks and only recovered by licking the cloth clean. He pretends to sleep when the driver catches him staring.

“Not so pleasant for me,” the driver retorts, twisting the wiper knob further. The blades squeak in perfect time with the car’s ticking as the driver signals for a left turn. “Can’t see a single thing.”

And that works fine for Kaito. No one can see him enter his graying office building, the beep and whirr of elevators silenced by the sharp spatter of water against concrete. When he enters his unit and closes the door before a loitering neighbor could blink the excess moisture out of their eyes, his existence is questionable at best. The protective curtain of early spring is a gift, but not at all a necessity. Kaito makes a beeline for the bathroom, sink emptying itself with a gurgle of beige water from his overcautious makeup and gelled hair. Reflected in the mirror are bloodshot eyes and an exhale turned scowl as Kaito drags his hands down his face. He’s not too keen on his last meeting of the day; someone from the PSIA—Kudo Shinichi, to be exact—which is a little too close for his already downplayed comfort.

Kaito doesn’t bear grudges; it’s not productive enough when the emotions involved have died, blunted by habit. But Shinichi at the very least gets him irritated. A mistaken call of _hey, Kuroba_ from his former high school classmate a few months ago remains the only pin-sized blemish in his career, courtesy of a federal agent and Kaito’s own egotistical negligence. No one has suspected anything of him, and no one will, but he can’t shake off the thoughts that never having a good reason to feel fear is a sick omen for an imminent demise.

There isn’t much to recall about Shinichi other than their two-man literature club in high school and how Shinichi would insist on wearing his ill-fitting blazer over the school jumper. Both of them were intelligent and contemptuously bored, wiling away time until graduation in each other’s distanced company until Shinichi’s abrupt move to Tokyo and the sudden death of Kaito’s father. It’s troubling enough knowing that Shinichi did pursue his lofty ambitions of playing detective and is now a domestic investigator in the PSIA; Kaito doesn’t know how to exactly conduct a proper transaction with an old friend. His line of work dehumanizes by nature. He’s out of touch and the frailty of his own boundaries resurface as bags under his eyes. There’s probably no need to dress up and be Kido in front of Shinichi, though Kaito blames his unending day for such excuses.

***

Kudo Shinichi is a museum-piece; the seventeen-year-old he once was is locked and framed strategically—a beloved vintage. His hair maintains its high school cut to obsessive detail, something so outdated it may just pass as fashionable again, though Kaito marvels in quiet surprise at how Shinichi has grown into it alongside a blazer that no longer looks pretentious on his older figure. He has just the smallest slouch in his shoulders, enough to appear humble, like he’s comfortable existing just as he is when he should be crawling under all that skin. His tight smile as he enters Kaito’s doorway is the only thing betraying this performance. Predisposed to be cerebral, Shinichi gives the studio a cursory glance before meeting Kaito’s eyes again, gaze falling to Kaito’s bare feet and every vein he’s tacked onto them over the years they’ve become strangers.

“I assume you're not Kido’s assistant, Kuroba,” Shinichi tells him in a light tone. His bravado cracks around the edges with tension wrapped around his posture as his hands tremble putting a drenched umbrella away. Kaito delays the judgment of Shinichi being like the rest of his clientele for the moment, choosing to believe that time had increased the other’s neuroses as much as it did to himself.

“Good evening to you too, Kudo.” Kaito offers to take Shinichi’s coat, to which the latter stiffly obliges. PSIA seems to have wrung a retired dog out of the man, his comely features made redundant, for Shinichi moves like someone crawling out of a premature burial. “The couches are a lot comfier than that door.”

Shinichi wordlessly follows the direction of Kaito’s finger and seats himself on a moss-suede chaise, drawing his limbs into himself as he allows the furniture to drown him in fabric, like cheap resin in the hands of a novice which evokes a blunted sense of obligatory pity. Kaito decides to brew him chamomile instead of coffee.

“Didn’t expect you to lead an exciting double-life as an informant. Right, what name should I call you by? Kido? I may slip up from time to time.” Shinichi’s question is structured to probe, most likely an occupational habit.

“Kuroba is fine in private.”

“I guess it’s a good time to say I’m sorry for calling out to you in public like that.” The apology seems sincere in how Shinichi offers it with a well-meaning grin, without the intentions of placating Kaito in this terrain that is so disadvantageous for him. Kaito can only hope that Shinichi understands it does good for neither of them to be seen like this. “Didn’t know you were with a client.” His voice is dampened by rain, hands clasped neatly on his lap with tightly crossed legs.

“All good,” Kaito replies dismissively. “So, what brings you here today?”

Shinichi remains thoughtfully quiet as he finishes his observation of Kaito’s space, focused on the cups of tea Kaito has walking out of the mini kitchen. “I need info on Numabuchi Kiichiro.”

“Tamenaga’s director?”

“That’s him.” Shinichi’s own hands are splotched purple, red in the knuckles as he warms them around the scalding hot cup. The evident lack of circulation translates in Kaito’s mind as ants. Shinichi looks smaller than he ever was in high school. “I’ll take any info you have and can get for his dealings.”

Kaito breathes out a long, deliberate sigh after his first sip of tea, occupying the basketweave sofa across Shinichi’s chaise. The art trade has been quiet for years now, and Kaito isn’t aware of any internal affairs as of date. Moreover, the Tamenaga Gallery is just one of twenty galleries in Ginza’s circle, too prestigious to escape scrutiny, and Numabuchi is too new in the higher scene to delve into the illicit. He makes a note to make a few calls before bed. Meddling with PSIA’s affairs no matter how indirectly will not prove beneficial to him, but fatal curiosity runs in the family.

“Mind if I ask what for?”

“I can’t even tell you, because I have no idea what for yet,” Shinichi replies, innocuously honest as he finally looks Kaito straight in the eye. It catches Kaito off-guard, the stillness of Shinichi’s gaze, only broken when Shinichi raises his cup to wind-chapped lips.

“Do you mind waiting until tomorrow? Or the day after?” Kaito clears his throat. “I don’t want to give you crumbs. We can talk about this over coffee once I find something.”

Shinichi offers Kaito his second smile of the evening, eyes lifted enough at the corners that it seems more genuine than the first. He extends a hand out to Kaito, the same one that’s been gripping a scalding hot tea cup for at least ten minutes. It’s too dry to feel human. Kaito takes it with less strength as he would’ve liked.

“Tomorrow it is, Kuroba.”

“I’ll call you a cab.”

Tinny jazz from his phone drowns the rest of the room while Shinichi obtains his coat. Kaito watches Shinichi bend down in the middle of his entryway, a smoothness that could only be inherited, not practiced, as he laces up his brogues methodically, casting Kaito a sideways glance on top of a small grin. When the operator asks him for an address, Kaito doesn’t look away. Shinichi does so first as he straightens himself back up. Their shoulders brush against each other when Kaito opens the door slow, Shinichi’s face a couple inches away from his with his hand on the door panel. The red webwork overtaking the white of Shinichi’s eyes reflect off of Kaito’s own.

“See you then,” Shinichi tells him, a hurried hush before dashing to the elevators.

***

The café is a small one, idyllic in its hanging gardens décor. Kaito pours a packet of sugar into his. Shinichi sips it black with no trepidation nor appreciation as if the coffee is as dispensable as tap water.

“Nothing exemplary about Numabuchi,” Kaito says, “he’s only taken over Tamenaga for three years, but consistently active and uncontested sales-wise. I’ve compiled a list of the artists he has recruited up to date, as well as clientele.” The blurry terracotta lights above them overcompensate for poor exposure with contrast, enabling Kaito’s gaze to trace the shadows of Shinichi’s lash line as he peers down into the mug. The heated anxiety from yesterday has been replaced by familiar distance and steady hands. “The only thing of note in his file is his stronger affiliation with Geidai than any other local art institute since last year, but then again, he just entered the faculty. Nothing you wouldn’t know, really... I don’t see anything you could pin on him.” Kaito hands Shinichi the compiled data in a manila folder slid across the table. The tip of Shinichi’s brogue taps against Kaito’s socked ankle as he adjusts his chair to sit closer.

Shinichi gives him a clouded look, disappointment not hidden well enough to spare Kaito’s ego. “I haven’t accused him of anything, have I?” he asks in a tone that is less berating than it is a civilized taunt.

“An informant can’t read minds, Kudo,” Kaito chides, his usual pleasant grin stretching itself stiff as he tries to save face.

“No, I’m not trying to be discrete or anything.” Shinichi removes his hand from the mug to rest it on their table. His fingers are curled slightly on varnished pine, just past the table’s midpoint to toe at Kaito’s space as he picks up the folder. “You’ve done your part, and I’ll be sure to come back to you once I’ve done mine.”

“I take it that this isn’t PSIA’s typical M. O.”

Shinichi starts tapping his fingers to the blues beat in the coffee shop’s background music, precisely eight beats spent with his gaze trained on the collar of Kaito’s shirt before he halts to drink more coffee. Kaito has not been the subject of such scrutiny from a client before, and he keeps count of the beats in his head, Shinichi’s finger eventually stopping after eighty-five.

“You’re right,” Shinichi says without much feeling, “it isn’t.”

They part at the subway station, and hours later Kaito finds himself on his back gasping into the crisp white sheets of a hotel bed, chasing after the spark he felt in the hundredth-of-a-second touches he had shared with Shinichi, focusing all sensation upwards to his arms while one of Numabuchi’s ex-colleagues fucks impatiently into him with the etiquette of a recently graduated virgin. He forces the man’s face far into the crook of his neck, effectively hiding his presence enough to let Kaito freely hypothesize whether or not the poor circulation in Shinichi’s hands extend all the way to his feet, if he submits stiffly under a body larger than his own or enjoys the perverted act of obedience, if his digits turn numb upon orgasm, the convulsions wracking through his body in time with choked out moans as he rocks his hips up to prolong the event.

The man is verbose post-coitus, something Kaito doesn’t typically appreciate except for tonight as he is essentially on the clock and willing to compromise. “He’s an associate professor at Geidai, but mostly absent. Takes on supervision roles for some graduates.” He sprinkles in anecdotes of Numabuchi’s meek behavior in their social gatherings before trailing off. “Why are you interested in Numabuchi anyway? Do you work for a gallery?”

Kaito listens to the man in a daze. “My nephew got into Geidai and wanted me to ask questions.” The fatigue in his answer makes it sound convincing, at least.

“Well if you’re gunning for Numabuchi, I can tell you he likes them younger.”

The clink of a belt being fastened brings Kaito relief. He kisses the man goodbye out of courtesy and is given the room for the rest of the night, along with a ticket for complimentary breakfast.


	3. Without A Cure

**ii.**

**Without A Cure**

Novelty is scarce and relatively unwelcome in Kaito’s long standing marriage with crime, so Numabuchi Kiichiro’s nonexistent case is simultaneously of interest and growingly inconsolable worry. There is simply no crime to be had in Numabuchi’s case. He can’t help but blame Shinichi for his poor selection of suspects.

The following week is a cocaine-ridden haze as Kaito recklessly revisits his late father’s salvageable connections to pry further into Numabuchi’s affairs. His records prove to be as unremarkable as Kaito thought, and the frustration of yielding nothing is what has brought him to a dark but well-kept warehouse in Yokohama, inspecting tarped paintings before their shipment to Shenzhen’s freeports with eyes glossing over the muted colors of narcissistic self-portraits. There is a small corner in the warehouse sectioned off for Tamenaga, a mostly safe selection of commercial oil paintings with four _Figure with Meats_ counterfeits, all done by recent Geidai graduates. Labelled on them are product codes matching the students’ identification numbers. He had checked everything. He even dug for Numabuchi’s parents’ address; they are just a town away from where his mother lives.

Kaito’s phone buzzes in his pocket, Shinichi’s firm voice cutting through the claustrophobic silence. “Kuroba?”

“Hi, Kudo.” He curses at how mechanical that sounds.

“I’d like to talk to you in person sometime soon. Is dinner tomorrow alright with you?”

“Tomorrow evening is perfect.”

“Okay, I’ll see you then.”

Kaito spends the rest of his day with another art trader, then the evening with one of Numabuchi’s colleagues in Geidai. His father had a similar network on paper, so Kaito takes it as a common pattern and juggles Numabuchi’s accounts in his head to sleep, the promise of complimentary breakfast before nine in the morning forgotten as his dreams covered drenched umbrellas and polished brogues.

It took a couple of appointments in his notary office for Kaito to sober up enough for his meeting with Shinichi, a barely sustainable business in the neighboring ward which mainly serves to keep Kido out of public scrutiny. Rain pours in heavy torrents as if the come down from his recent binges hasn’t seeped into Kaito’s bones enough to paralyze. Dinner is the Italian restaurant across the street, its lighting dim by default as if to blunt the edge of pinprick anxiety Shinichi insists on having Kaito present in every meeting.

“I even used my father’s connections, Kudo, there’s nothing to be found there.”

“It’s not just Numabuchi,” Shinichi tells Kaito placatingly after his lackluster report.

“I can’t find the case, Kudo.”

Shinichi’s smile is apologetic, gaze still fully on Kaito even when the waiter stops by with their bottle of merlot. Kaito regains his composure and swirls his glass, raising it to Shinichi’s with as much confidence as he can muster at present. He observes the exact movements of Shinichi letting wine pool under his tongue, its wasteful descend leaving his lips marooned and open; a belief that mimicking these actions would bring the same results as performing them on Shinichi himself is what guides Kaito in decorum. It’s sick. He feels like he’s done this before, a long time ago.

“Have you heard of the Kenzo Gallery case? Masuyama Kenzo. I know it’s pretty old.”

Kaito had never heard of the Kenzo Gallery as a case. Masuyama was probably in the wrong place at the wrong time. “Failed to launch, surely.”

Shinichi’s legs rustle under the table, knees knocking gently into Kaito’s. “There’s a bit more to it.”

“More that doesn’t have anything to do with me.”

“The case says tax fraud, but Masuyama isn’t that innocent.” Shinichi is not compassionate in the slightest as he says this.

“So you want to connect Numabuchi to a closed case that is irrelevant to him.”

“Incorrectly solved cases don’t align with my morals. Do they align with yours?”

“I’m not discussing morality with a cop.”

The pasta is chalk in Kaito’s mouth, chunks of flour that would be better off peddled as speed to unsuspecting students. He lifts his right leg to cross over its left counterpart, calf accidentally sliding against Shinichi’s in the process, the tip of his shoe barely touching Shinichi’s shin. He receives stillness as a reply. Shinichi displays a trained control over his nerves that Kaito hasn’t seen in their previous meetings, staring straight into him with conviction that only gains more hope over time.

The rigid line of Shinichi’s lips morphs into a patronizing grin. “You don’t trust me, Kuroba.”

“I don’t.”

“If I gave you enough leverage over me, would you?”

“What amount of leverage would justify you having to hire an informant? You could flash your badge at me anytime.”

“Can we take this to your office?” Shinichi gives the table beside them an accusatory glance.

Kaito sighs, setting aside his cutlery in a perfect X atop his plate. Shinichi does the exact same, fork over his knife at neat angles to mirror Kaito’s side of the table. He rides in the passenger seat while Kaito is in the back of the cab, obtaining full access to the view of Shinichi’s fingers making a display out of the sash belt, tugging at the edges of the belt’s pillar only to run over the thick fabric in meditatively slow motions; pulling, releasing, repeating. Their eyes only meet once in the rearview mirror. The interior of their cab is a funeral parlor as the dry ochre of sodium lamps overhead bring out the sallowness of their skin, the strips of Shinichi’s hangnails illuminated to microscopic detail in their enduring reel to avoid his cuticles. The rise and fall of breath restrained by a stubborn strive for composure, accomplished with the most militaristic gait as they cross the lobby into the elevators.

It’s dark when they enter Kaito’s office unit, the only source of light being the cramped balcony and its drawn curtains. There is enough silver to line their physical silhouettes like a cadaver’s chalk outline would, and Shinichi keeps walking without waiting for Kaito’s approval or the lights. Kaito is left with no choice but to use Shinichi’s outline as his goalpost, a stranger in his own quarters. They are back where they started, face-to-face in the living room seated across each other, but vastly different in how Shinichi is exhibiting a restless eagerness that Kaito has only seen in cocaine users. His eyes, however, are lucid.

“How much do you know of me?”

“Just that you’re in the PSIA, First Department,” Kaito says. “That’s all I know beyond high school.”

He can see Shinichi smile in the dark, the contempt that he had unabashedly displayed in his youth now refined. “I expected you to know more, to be honest.”

“I don’t keep tabs on everyone just because I’m an informant, Kudo.”

“I was forced to transfer to the First Department. Made a career mostly from criminal profiling, before that.”

“Not a blunder, I assume?” Kaito interjects when Shinichi delays his response for too long. “Your track record was spotless.”

“Too spotless for my supervisor—at least, until some time ago,” Shinichi confesses with exaggerated mirth. “You see, in this case and several others, I don’t have the answers. At least not yet.”

“That’s supposedly the norm.”

“It’s more that I don’t know the _how_ s,” Shinichi clarifies, “but every other question has been solved.”

“So you make jumps. You’ve always been quick on things, Kudo.” Kaito heaves another sigh, but it’s embarrassingly loud in the quiet of his living room. “I don’t see why you’re dealing with me. If it’s a closed case to the PSIA, it’s a closed case for me too.”

Shinichi has his hands clasped as neatly as they were in their first meeting, but his nerves are gone in lieu of a cold sense of urgency.

“The leverage I’m giving you, Kuroba,” Shinichi says, “is the freedom to investigate me all you want, and dispose of me if you feel the need to.”

“And have you use that against me after you’re done?”

“You’re not a case, Kuroba.” Shinichi has given Kaito his terms of employment, and Kaito wants to decline. It would prove highly beneficial for him to simply decline Shinichi’s request and have them move on with their lives, but there is logic and there is the separate matter of Shinichi sitting across him, determined in his wait for a failed bargain. There is resolve, nostalgia, and contempt, accumulating within one man who reminds Kaito of nothing but humid summers and funerals.

“You can’t guarantee my life with yours,” Kaito forces himself to speak.

Shinichi lifts his arm to inspect his watch and stands up with a short sigh. His profile is swallowed by the darkness and Kaito blindly traces back his steps to the entryway, like a fleck of iron an inch away from a magnet, hands tentatively reaching out when Shinichi doesn’t move to his shoes after putting on his coat.

“I don’t want to be cheap with you, Kuroba.”

“Me neither,” Kaito mumbles. He quickly draws his hand back, but Shinichi holds it, bringing Kaito’s fingers to the pocket of his coat where papers and a flash drive had been stowed.

“Go through these in your own time, and give me a call when you feel like giving me another chance at convincing you.”

In the flash drive were candid pictures of Shinichi with the Inagawa Group’s advisor, two duffel bags worth a hundred million yen at their feet. Kaito doesn’t need to see the papers to know the implications of these pictures; he helped smuggle the money himself. What he doesn’t know is why Shinichi is using himself as a potential scapegoat for the already closed Lawson case. He calls Shinichi immediately, precise dates and times of the latter’s transactions freshly printed and turning damp under Kaito’s sweaty hands.

“Come back here.”

“Thank you,” is all Shinichi replies with, his voice cutting off after a polite plea for the driver to turn around.

***

Kaito hadn’t prepared himself for opening the door to Shinichi for the second time in the night, the questions dying in his throat before they could be properly articulated. He weakly shoves the flash drive and papers to Shinichi. “I don’t need this.”

“You truly do know everything, Kuroba,” Shinichi grins with relief, blissfully unaware that he’s wrong, for once.

Contrary to Shinichi’s statement, Kaito doesn’t feel like he knows anything, cautiously peeling the cotton gabardine off Shinichi’s satisfied figure as if he had fantasized about this in a commute daydream, blackmail stowed back into the same pocket as if it had never been exposed to begin with. He hangs the coat and walks to the living room after Shinichi, mirroring the motions of the last hour; the only difference being his current understanding of not having the power to reject whatever Shinichi offers him.

“I do mean it when I say I don’t have all the answers,” Shinichi informs him, “and I did not seek you out to extort you by any means.”

“Then?”

“You’re capable.” Kaito watches Shinichi’s fluid movements as he intertwines his fingers together in its typical, tight clasp, legs crossed with ease now, his calves no longer flushed against each other like a contortionist’s act. “Why don’t you recount for me how you dealt with Inagawa’s money?”

“You knew all along,” Kaito says.

Shinichi’s gaze doesn’t waver. “I’d like to hear it from your own mouth.”

The caution had died from the moment Kaito picked up his phone, but now the thoughts have died too, the very last one being a rough estimate of how long he could be incarcerated for confessing this. Shinichi is tense in the shoulders, openly staring in wait.

“PSIA officers found Inagawa’s courier before he could drop off the money. It was delivered, eventually, and no one was arrested. Inagawa’s advisor wanted me to launder it further,” Kaito explains.

Shinichi nods. “The Inagawa Group being your regular patron.”

Kaito attempts a proud grin. It comes out wry when he remembers that the Inagawa Group tips his services with cocaine. A weak sniffle escapes him in irony.

“They come to me all the way from Yokohama for everything,” Kaito says, rubbing his nose. “This was just one of many simple favors.”

“So you told them to integrate the money into stolen Lawson accounts.”

“I thought it would just be easier for everyone. Even tobacco stands do Bitcoins these days. All you need is a few black hats here and there, pick them up from any net café.” Kaito inhales slow, tracing back one of hundreds of these transactions. “Once the money was all gone, it was just a matter of waiting for someone to withdraw them again. If anyone gets caught, it’s no longer on Inagawa.”

“As clean as it gets.”

The compliment sounds hollow to Kaito’s ears. He looks down to find his thumb bleeding, the skin of its side having been picked off throughout the conversation. He tucks the digit into a fist. “Did you actually deliver the money to them?”

Shinichi leans forward, hands removed from each other as he rests his chin on one palm. He looks up at Kaito with blatant admiration, which would be flattering in any other situation. “Thanks to your work, it was a breeze on my part.”

“Well now you’ve heard enough to have me locked up for at least twenty years. What do you want?”

There’s another delay as Shinichi stops to gaze down at the coffee table, humming lightly a single note. “I just want to finish a personal project before I quit the force.”

“Quitting? You’re in PSIA’s First Department.”

“It’s not as grand as it sounds.”

“And that’s enough to justify what you’re doing?”

There’s no rain to obscure them, no cover for Kaito to hide all his rustling and fidgeting under. As if it were a merciful act, Shinichi starts speaking again, “You know, you left first. In high school.”

“I don’t remember too well, but we practically left at the same time.”

“No, I left after you. Just a month after.” Kaito bristles at the slight accusation. Shinichi placates him with another grin. “You never came back after the funeral. I thought I was going to die of boredom.”

Closure was the first thing Kaito came to as a conclusion, that Shinichi wants to end this arc of his career with flair. But Shinichi doesn’t even give himself the option of having closure; he wants sensation.

“I don’t know what gave you the impression that I’m the one you should be asking for all this, but—”

“You are,” Shinichi interjects. “I won’t negotiate this part.” He stands up and walks about the coffee table to crouch before Kaito, gripping his arms with desperation that is void from the rest of his features. “No extortions here—in fact, I’ll do everything to make sure we’re both safe. I’ll make it worth your while. What do you say?”

Kaito can only helplessly watch his boundaries blur to nothing, the repetition of _just another client_ flatlining as he processes a quick _yes_ to get Shinichi physically away from him. He doesn’t want to stare at two decades in the face.

“Great! I won’t overstay my welcome then. My promises earlier are guaranteed. And really...” Kaito stays a few steps away from Shinichi as he walks back to the entryway. His hands remain still this time, loosely crossed over his chest as a means of restraint. Shinichi notices this. “I have missed you a fair bit, Kuroba.”

It’s eerie, how Kaito remembers off the top of his head that Shinichi puts on his coat first, shoes second. He did as such an hour ago just as he did when they were adolescents.

“I may have,” Kaito says quietly, waving Shinichi goodbye.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me, sometime around early rona months: im going to create an environment that is so gay


	4. Stay Petrified

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my beta and i read this as a comedy, like how we would consume hannibal the tv series, and i think thats just a good time
> 
> speaking of ! there is strangulation here; if you dont feel like reading that, please skip from "He can hear the clerk beside him again...." to "right before another screech, rubber against asphalt—" (towards the end)

**iii.**

**Stay Petrified**

The PSIA Kanto Office’s layout is displayed across Kaito’s monitor, its surveillance system open as a paranoid afterthought on a different window. He goes through the routes to Shinichi’s cubicle for the sixth time in the past fifteen minutes while filling the blanks in Shinichi’s terms regarding his free investigation privileges; Kaito preferred having options, of which he hadn’t had the previous evening.

It’s overcast when he arrives at the Kanto Office, the discrepancies between his figure and Shinichi’s easily concealed by a long coat and the mask covering his face, telling the receptionist that he’s recovering from a slight cold, he just needed to retrieve some papers.

There is no objective in this run; Kaito goes through the lifts and stairs as planned and sits idly on Shinichi’s chair, bare hands rifling through his folders because he’s supposedly excused to do so. He finds a folder with Numabuchi’s data in it, alongside Masuyama’s, a sizable fraction of the Inagawa Group, and his own. He copies them in a rush.

A detour to PSIA’s human resources office lets Kaito know that the supervisor responsible for Shinichi’s forced transfer is Mouri Ran; a somewhat familiar name to an unknown face, for Shinichi has never revealed much about himself before he moved to Kaito’s high school. Childhood sweethearts, Shinichi and Ran, reunited in the academy to stay together in PSIA ever since. He doesn’t find Shinichi to be careless enough of a person to risk a workplace romance, but he stows the tidbit for a later day. He also entertains the thought of barging into Shinichi’s home, though it disappears when Shinichi texts him with that very invitation.

His register compiler charged him twice the amount for Ran’s papers, but Kaito is scratching his cuticles past the line of his skin, glossy pink stinging and itching. He daydreams of a teenaged Shinichi drowning him in the river a few blocks away from their school; Shinichi smiling with red teeth, their enamel clinging to the plastic bag over his head as he’s pushed off the docks by jewel-adorned hands; Shinichi, still too lanky for a blazer, smelling of rust as they witness a car crash. The last one leaves red spots exploding under his eyes. The market sinks for a mere few hours, and Kaito buys out instantly, the papers Shinichi gave him crinkling under his hands. Kaito has no clue what Shinichi wants from him. If he’s been lying for PSIA this entire time, Kaito—no, _Kido_ —has to get to Numabuchi first. 

“You’re not even trying to hide it this time,” Shinichi remarks. He’s not smiling for once. Kaito is acutely aware of the sweat dripping down into the collar of his shirt but keeps his back straight, shoulders squared and lowered to Ran’s default posture. He can’t feel the coiffed wig when he pushes strands of long hair behind his ear.

“What did you call me here for?”

Shinichi serves him coffee without a glance, sitting on the adjacent armchair with his legs crossed. He’s twiddling his thumbs in his own home.

“Just an idle request for an update,” he says. “Though you seem to have a different plan in mind.”

“No plans.” Shinichi’s apartment is sterile, like a unit still up for sale, family pictures and academy memorabilia false-looking in their solid wooden frames. Kaito can’t feel anything covered so thoroughly in cheap pantyhose and polyester. “Only a reminder.”

Crossed legs seem to be Shinichi’s main method of self-restraint; his hands are kept close to his torso, closed off and cold in the gaze. Kaito sniffles, rubbing his nose to reveal a dry grin.

“Wouldn’t have recognized you from the back,” Shinichi says quietly. “Threatening my parents next? Was my own life not enough? I even offered blackmail.”

Kaito stands up, not bothering to smooth down the pencil skirt hiking mid-way up his thighs as he kneels before Shinichi. “None of your offers are valid,” he retorts.

Moving higher, he straddles Shinichi, dark hair cascading past their shoulders as he looms over Shinichi like a worn canopy in the rain. His arms are straight, resting his weight on each palm as they cage Shinichi in.

“Name your terms.” Shinichi gives in with confidence.

“You’re not making any money off this, are you? I can’t even ask for a commission.” Kaito leans in closer, speaking right next to Shinichi’s ear to leave the other facing the clear skies refracting past his balcony’s sliding door. Any confession uttered will be between Shinichi and God himself with Kaito as an honored witness. “You roped me into something you can’t afford.”

Shinichi grips Kaito’s shoulder and waist, legs unhooking to kick Kaito off him; there is no time to process his movements or respond beyond the groan of wind getting knocked out of him. Kaito is pried open with his hands pinned on both sides of his head.

“I don’t need to afford it,” Shinichi whispers. “I didn’t rope you into anything.”

“You’re sick—”

“Funny because you’re the one dressing up as me to feel yourself up in _my_ office.” Shinichi loosens his hold on Kaito’s wrists. “You can’t get yourself out of this anymore, Kuroba. Think your papers are coincidentally clipped behind Numabuchi’s? You’re smarter than that.”

Kaito doesn’t move when Shinichi peels himself off to lie next to Kaito, thumb grazing down his cheek to the corner of his lips, methodically removing the gloss on them. He can feel the jagged edge of a bitten nail and scabbed skin while the finger right under his left eye causes it to twitch. Shinichi’s arms forego his sides to remain idle on Kaito’s chest, fingers curled loosely around his neck while the thumb aligns itself with his jugular. When he closes his eyes, he can still feel Shinichi’s grip on his waist; the impact against hardwood flooring. 

“Not even sharing your plans with me?” Kaito asks after a while.

“You’ll know what to do,” Shinichi replies with a sigh. He sits up, pulling down the hem of Kaito’s skirt and smoothing out its creases. “Ran would.”

He gets up to retrieve Kaito’s untouched cup, pouring its contents into his sink which clangs in response to the sudden heat. Kaito focuses on the unlit ceiling lamp and hoists himself up by the elbows.

“You don’t look too well,” Shinichi tells him over the rushing water. “Want to use my shower?”

“No.” The downtime from his own substance abuse comes in hot flashes and his shirt clinging to his drenched back, arms trembling as they push him off the ground to stand on shaky legs. The sky remains blindingly clear.

“Take care on your way back,” Shinichi tells him from the doorstep.

Kaito puts on his coat and walks to the elevator in a daze. His phone buzzes from an unknown number when he’s halfway down the apartment building, and he picks up the call to the sound of rustling and wheezing.

“Hello?”

“H-hello? Is this Kido?” Fear takes hold of the static crackling through Kaito’s speakers. “This is Numabuchi, Numabuchi Kiichiro from the Tamenaga Gallery... oh, you probably don’t know it, it’s in Ginza—if you turn right on the second avenue—”

“I know of Tamenaga,” Kaito interrupts when his cab approaches the curb, covering his phone when he gives his address.

“Great!” He hears more rustling. “Great, great, so great that you already know... then, is it possible to have an appointment with you? In person?”

Kaito should be happier at how green Numabuchi sounds, Tamenaga’s data gift wrapped and dropped into his palms. He can’t feel much aside from his own blood boiling him inside out, the throbbing in his head promising a migraine that he’ll waste an evening on in his bathroom, soaked in his own sweat.

“Does afternoon the day after tomorrow work?” he says, running a hand down his face. It feels like he could peel his own skin off. The driver leers at him from the rearview mirror; it must be his voice. “I’ll send my terms and conditions to you shortly, along with a time and place.”

“Excellent! Thank you so much, Kido. I-is there anything else I can do to—”

“Nothing. Wait for my email and I’ll see you then.”

He tosses a ten-thousand-yen bill on top of his fare, hunching forward to subject the driver to his perfectly done eyes and chapped, pale lips. His right hand reaches for the driver’s seat belt, loosening it before pulling it taut along the width of the man’s emaciated neck, leaving a line in its wake. The driver barely whimpers.

“Take a picture next time,” he taunts, voice low.

***

Kaito has vivid dreams. He suspects he has more of them than the average person and once tried to figure out why, but sleep research is scarce and offers no console at best. Chalk it up to active imagination; he needs it for the job anyway.

There’s a particularly recurrent set of images, as of late; white sun striking fine hairs on pale arms before disappearing to the other side of the water. The screech of tires preluding a lackluster crash, then, whips of smoke. Shinichi watching Kaito watch the scene unfold before him, expecting something. Unflinching.

A loud car zooms past; its tires’ wail jolts Kaito awake, but he has been awake. He’s standing in front of a café a couple blocks away from the Tamenaga Gallery, the blister-red skin of his hand no longer registering the heat of the now lukewarm coffee. It’s five minutes until his appointment with Numabuchi. He does a quick check on himself against a parked car’s window, which reflects a familiar stranger back to him. Today, Kaito is twenty-three with a penchant for bucket hats. Numabuchi’s colleague from a couple weeks ago had kindly advised him as such, after all.

“Welcome to Galerie de Tamenaga!” Numabuchi salutes him with his chest proudly puffed out, tailored suit hiding any vestiges of age on his physique. His name can’t be missed; a sparkling tag pinned above his right breast pocket while the left houses a heavily patterned handkerchief.

“It’s Kido,” Kaito says with a pleasant smile, his automatically extended hand met with both of Numabuchi’s eager palms. “Pleasure to meet you, Numabuchi-san. Do you have a place where we can talk?”

“Ah, yes! Yes, of course.” Numabuchi gives one last firm shake before escorting Kaito to the back of the gallery. The office space is almost maximalist, a mess of Numabuchi’s private collection amongst other grandiose items, at least a third of which are still wrapped in paper. Numabuchi ushers Kaito to a seat before taking his right across. “When I asked a friend, they told me to just find an informant—said you’re better than a stock broker. And another friend recommended you...”

“May I ask who?”

“I can’t quite remember, actually. Just some auctioneer I met.” Numabuchi fiddles with one of his paperweights, a small golden dragon with ruby eyes. White pools on the surface of the gem’s red striking Kaito as a familiar sight. He had watched his father do the same, weighing them carefully in his hands because rubies were his favorite, no matter how often he said it was sapphires instead.

“Hey, don’t worry.” It sounds more like self-reassurance than a response. “It doesn’t matter, I shouldn’t have asked. What can I do for you today?”

“R-right. Right, I’m the client now...” Numabuchi stammers. His shoulders deflate with an ignorant honesty that Kaito only sees once every fifteen clients or so.

Kaito’s head throbs. “The art market has been pretty weird recently, hasn’t it?” he starts, hoping it would coax Numabuchi into saying something.

“Exactly! I haven’t been able to buy a single thing since last week, so I can’t restock, but that means I’m not even allowed to sell much, and I’ve a shipment waiting but then the market...”

There are at least four mirrors in the office, and at least five times that amount of glass. Kaito takes note of the surveillance camera at the far-left corner of the room. The rucksack leaning against his leg falls with a slight jostle, marking the end of Numabuchi’s spiel. Kaito produces a folder onto the desk.

“This is just market data I’ve compiled specially for you, sir.” He quickly retracts his hands from the exchange while Numabuchi accepts the folder like it contained blood money. “I’d hold off buying for the next two weeks or so, if I were you. After that, please use the data as you see fit. I assure you it’s clean.”

“Thank you, really,” Numabuchi sighs. He puts away the folder too quickly with jittery arms. “I know this is rude of me to ask, but this meeting is confidential, isn’t it?”

“I have no one to tell.”

Numabuchi sits with downturned eyes and his elbows pushing against his table, like a child awaiting punishment. “I’m planning to start auctioning off my collection.” He gives Kaito a nervous glance. “I-it’s a counterfeit collection, but they’re very good! They just have to remain underground. That auctioneer I mentioned is busy and I can’t run it by myself.”

“Would you like me to connect you with someone? It might take me a week or two to find someone suitable, is that alright?”

“Yes! That would be perfect!” Numabuchi gushes. “I’ve asked one too many questions already—please, give me a quote, Kido.”

Kaito gestures to Numabuchi’s camera above, hoping his hunch is right. “Ten percent of your upcoming quarter,” he says, “and all CCTV footage you have of your auctioneer friend.”

Numabuchi hands Kaito the tapes all too willingly while trying to invite him for tea with fellow socialites. He still feels like he’s saying no to the man when he wakes from his nap, in a cab he can’t recall getting on, with Tamenaga exhibition tickets he doesn’t remember having received crumpled in his hand. The driver parks by the docks. His ride’s final fare tells Kaito that he’s in Yokohama again, and he trudges past salted winds to the docks’ fifth warehouse. The gates are unlocked. He sees someone remove the tarp off Numabuchi’s cargo.

“What are you doing here?”

Shinichi greets Kaito with a small grin. “Feeling better, I hope. I guess I have you to thank for the art market crash.”

“It’s not big enough to be a crash.” The dim light from the windows above allowing details of the pilling fabric on Shinichi’s coat. There’s dust on the hem of his sleeves.

“Do you have to do that every day?” Shinichi gestures to Kaito’s face.

“Only when meeting clients.”

“How busy,” Shinichi says, pulling one of Numabuchi’s canvases out. “You’ve been here before. Tell me what you see.”

They’re standing too close to each other. Kaito is sweating through his makeup and his toes curl in their trainers. He takes one hesitant step towards Shinichi, the lower half of his face obscured by the painting, unmoving when Kaito brings his hands up to hold the canvas’s frame. Shinichi’s narrowed gaze on him is almost reverent.

“He’s running a counterfeit ring of sorts by having his students paint for him.” Kaito keeps his eyes lowered, focusing on the muddy strokes surrounding Pope Innocent’s eyeless face. It’s the exact same mud he stood on when his mother told him she was worried; it was late and his father had not come home. “The product codes match their Geidai IDs.”

Shinichi lowers the painting to reveal a still-present smile. “Seems we’re getting somewhere after all. Did you know Masuyama has been loitering about the Geidai campus?” Kaito’s fingers relax when Shinichi turns around to return the painting, the flaw on his coat visible once more. He hears a stampede towards the unloading dock along with three blasts of a cargo ship’s horn. The concrete rumbles under his feet.

“Is this what you mean by doing your part?”

“Of course. I’m not a slacker, Kuroba.”

They were in a small storage room, boxes pushed to one wall to make room for a few chairs, a table. The sun was setting and Kaito had a perfectly graded club evaluation form in his grip. Shinichi had submitted it alone. Shinichi did most things alone when not in Kaito’s company. He made sure the literature club stayed with only two members and Kaito recalls this because it was an identical exchange they had; each fleck of dust shines at five in the afternoon and each strand of Shinichi’s hair is warmer than usual, every inch of skin he got to see with the blazer removed. His mother told him that she found Shinichi to be a warm person. His father found him cold. 

Kaito inhales sharply. “We’ve done this before, Kudo.”

“Get some rest, why don’t you?” Shinichi says in lieu of a confirmation, pulling out a handkerchief to wipe the sweat off Kaito’s brows. “I’ll see you around.”

The sea clings to Kaito in the sting of salt on his lips, a dim sort of wakefulness like the late wail of a foghorn right as a ship capsizes, wandering in the mild clarity of his blue-tinged bedroom. It starts raining when Kaito sums up his schedule for the week, Geidai at the top of his priorities. Every sound he makes is drowned out by crashing water and every thought quelled by the weight of Shinichi’s gaze in his head; a narrowed panorama told only in reflections off a cab’s rearview mirror and the windows of their club room. Their eyes met in glass but Shinichi had been looking someplace farther. Someplace Kaito couldn’t see. When Shinichi turned around to stare Kaito in the face, he wondered if it was a poor attempt at sharing. He’d spent years staring back at warmth that sears. A warmth capable of leaching all heat out of his body.

It’s two in the morning when Kaito decides to watch the surveillance footage. His computer plays a file dating back to mid-February, static until two men walk into the room. Numabuchi’s figure is hidden entirely from the camera, his voice distant. The “auctioneer” is unmistakably Shinichi, drawn into himself where he sits, his expression indiscernible. 

“ _An informant, you say?_ ”

“ _Yes. His name is Kido. I can get you in touch with him, if you’d like._ ”

Shinichi dictates Kaito’s phone number to Numabuchi. His arms are folded on the table as he leans over to check the digits, nodding to Numabuchi before reclining.

“ _And I can trust this person?_ ”

A pleasant laugh crackles through the computer Shinichi raises a hand to cover his mouth. “ _Of course_ ,” he sighs, “ _Kido is..._ ”

He tilts his head up to smile at Kaito through the camera.

“... _a close friend of mine._ ”

***

Geidai’s periphery is made up of cafés and art supply stores, allowing Kaito his privacy of feigning an allergy, constantly sniffling while his eyes skitter back and forth between his coffee and the campus gates. He’s always found stakeouts tedious; boring enough that his dulled high feels restless, vision strained every time he has to pick Numabuchi and Masuyama from a crowd. It’s Kaito’s fifth day of doing this, and Masuyama has been present for three of those days. Numabuchi walks out of campus with a different student each time. Masuyama takes pictures of them. Kaito observes Masuyama zooming shakily into every instance Numabuchi lays his hand on an overeager shoulder, the crook of a waist. When he tails them, it’s always to a love hotel downtown in Shibuya. Today, Kaito stands watch while Masuyama ambles about, out-of-place in the neighboring convenience store.

A huge gust of wind forces Kaito to clench his eyes shut. The rib of his umbrella snaps from its stretcher, leaving the canopy to flap helplessly while rain quickly drenches Kaito’s parka. He runs into the store, queueing up behind Masuyama who turns around to gawk at him. Kaito reaches for his wet face to mirror the questioning stare. He doesn’t put on a disguise during stakeouts, but Masuyama doesn’t know him. At least, he shouldn’t.

“Toichi?” Masuyama’s dumbfounded gape morphs into fear as he utters the name of Kaito’s long-dead father. “Toichi, is that you?”

He’s grabbing Kaito forcefully, shaking his shoulders and getting his own hands drenched in the process. The clerk’s distressed words jumble themselves into gibberish as Kaito shakes himself free from Masuyama. He flees the store without a new umbrella, water in his ears. There is nowhere safe enough for him to escape other than Shinichi’s place, he thinks, high up with its spartan balcony and empty kitchen. The blue cityscape rushes by him like he’s immobile, but he knows he’s not. The burn of his lungs is evidence that he’s still tethered to reality, rocks in his shoes while he reminds himself to keep breathing. Fearing the elevators’ surveillance cameras, he hides behind the emergency staircase to snort the remainder of his bag from the morning, white powder thickening into a paste on the back of his wet hand and choking him. He throws his head back to down every last crumb of the substance in deep inhales.

Kaito doesn’t realize the ache in his calves nor the puddle forming underneath him until Shinichi appears in his line of sight, rushing over to drape his coat over Kaito’s shivering figure. The emergency door is left wide open at the end of the corridor, and Kaito remembers climbing all ten flights of stairs before crashing into Shinichi’s door, praying that none of his neighbors were around to see.

“Your nose is bleeding,” Shinichi tells him softly, swiping his thumb across the top of Kaito’s lip, then his chin. It’s warm, warm enough to rob Kaito of his own temperature when Shinichi pulls away with red stains along his finger’s joints. They enter the apartment silently, Shinichi leaving Kaito alone in his bathroom with clean clothes and a towel. The water pricks every pore in Kaito’s skin and his legs tremble when he lathers them with soap.

Shinichi awaits him in a bright living room, water next to a steaming cup of tea as he watches the news broadcast of a highway accident. Two cars are shown in low resolution with smoke rising from where they’ve collided into a single unit.

“Have you calmed down?” Shinichi asks, looking away from the screen.

“Yeah, thanks,” Kaito says noncommittally, staring at the spot where he fell upon the other week and noticing that the armchair has been dragged back to its former position. Shinichi opts for his larger sofa, this time, and Kaito eases himself into the plush suede. His skin is still pink from the shower and as raw as the frayed nerves pulsing along his spine.

“Care to tell me what led to you shivering against my door?”

“Things,” Kaito replies, his voice barely heard above the reporter’s. Liquid creeps up the tea bag’s string, soaking the paper tag before dribbling onto the coffee table. He takes the glass of water instead and curses when his wrist jerks.

Shinichi brings his arm to rest against the sofa’s back. “It’s alright, we have time.”

“Maybe.” He hopes he answered Shinichi correctly. The sentence doesn’t register in Kaito’s mind, still stuck to the past half-hour and wanting warmth. A disoriented desire borne from the lack of feeling in his extremities. The television is showing photographs of the deceased when a calloused hand holds his face. He lets his head loll into it instinctively, eyelids drooping to trace the hand back to Shinichi, who gives him a scrutinizing look.

“Where were you?”

“Geidai.” Shinichi’s thumb is still rough in texture; a worn thing that will whittle away into a stub. He rubs it across the height of Kaito’s cheekbone. “I was in Geidai, then Shibuya.”

“Were you meeting Numabuchi?”

“I’ve been tailing him for the past few days. He sleeps with his students. In Shibuya—he takes them there.”

“Did you see Masuyama?”

Masuyama was pallid under the store’s harsh lighting. His skin hangs off his bones, following its inertia when he shook Kaito by the shoulders. Looking back at it, Kaito doesn’t know what he ran away from. He may have feared the loose skin, wearing itself thin as it blindly followed the inertia of Masuyama’s frantic shaking. The sound of rubber grinding against asphalt rings true in his ears, a car veering off-course to a screeching halt because the crash itself will always be silent; tires wailing through sodium-lit pavements to rattle unsuspecting windows being the true antecedent of death.

Shinichi should be understanding of the fact that Kaito doesn’t remember what fear feels like.

“He saw me. But he called for my dad by name. Toichi.” Shinichi falters, retreating only for Kaito to catch him by the wrist, covering his hand and bringing it onto his cheek again. He tilts his head up to meet Shinichi’s forlorn gaze. “Do you remember him, Kudo?”

“I do. I met him the few times I visited your house.”

“When I met Numabuchi last week, he was holding something. It had rubies, and I thought of my dad weighing them out in his study.”

“Toichi did?”

“Yes, Toichi. My dad. My _father_. He was in the jewelry trade, don’t you remember?” The confusion in Shinichi’s drawn brows worries Kaito. He grips Shinichi’s fingers tighter, as if it would jog his memory. “My father who died in a collision? Like what’s on your TV right now?”

Shinichi yanks his hand away from Kaito’s, firmly holding onto his arms instead. “First off, your father was in the art trade. You told me that you used his old connections to make contact with Numabuchi.”

“They had overlapping circles—”

“ _Secondly_ ,” Shinichi raises his voice, unclouded pity stopping him short from a yell. “He didn’t die in a collision, Kuroba, he died alone. He crashed into a bridge pillar.”

The collision plays out again on the screen and Kaito thrusts himself forward with a grunt, curling his hands around Shinichi’s neck. He presses down until he can count the quickening heartbeat underneath. “He died in an accident, Kudo. A highway accident. Two cars just like the news said earlier!”

He can hear the clerk beside him again; a bright white store with Masuyama sprawled across muddy tiles, loose skin flapping as his nails dig weakly into Kaito’s forearms in protest. Masuyama stares at him through sparse lashes, mouth gaping wide open like he’s willing to consume Kaito whole. Trembling hands crawl up Kaito’s arm and he feels it; ants swarming in colonies, the mud of a funeral home, incinerator smoke billowing in an overcast sky that could be clear, for it did right before another screech, rubber against asphalt—

The clerk’s wailing mutes itself to the drone of a reporter and Kaito lets go. He scoots back from the body he was straddling, the body with splotchy skin and dry hands, spilling over a faux suede sofa before shrinking into itself. There is no loose skin in sight; it’s Shinichi wheezing and sputtering to catch his breath.

“We saw him,” Shinichi rasps. “We were walking home, and we saw him die. One car.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in response to kaito in drag:
> 
> [My Beta] 10:11PM OCT4  
> ok u sexual deviant  
> [Me] 10:38PM OCT4  
> im passing away


	5. In the Cold Light of Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> omg i forgot to update. ITS FINE
> 
> I ALSO FORGOT TO MENTION BUT CW FOR VIOLENCE!!!!  
> if u dont wish to read it, skip from "A clear mind doesn’t spare Kaito from hand tremors..." to "...It tasted of rust."
> 
> extra notes i forgot: the NTA is japans National Tax Agency .. i was looking for irs equivalents sdjghsdjg

**iv.**

**In the Cold Light of Day**

Shinichi had not allowed Kaito to leave alone after his outburst, volunteering himself for night watch as he settled to sleep on Kaito’s chaise. The very same one he occupied some weeks ago, though Kaito couldn’t be sure; the calendar tells him it’s the first week of April, but the fog in his brain is a thick mess of years. Light seeped through the gap under his door, interrupted by Shinichi’s passing shadow, and Kaito could only think of his parched throat before exhaustion overtook him.

“It’s beautiful outside,” Shinichi says when Kaito emerges out of his room, smiling over a cup of coffee. “Shall we go somewhere? Or do you have clients to meet later?”

He had opened the windows, sunlight filling up Kaito’s apartment to show every speck of dust floating about Shinichi. He sits like he’s not foreign in these walls, justified in claiming the space as home. A spectre with a voice and a body; hair brown in the sun and its legs permanently crossed. It stares at Kaito through narrow eyes, the corners crinkled from a grin. The curtains flutter behind him as if in welcome, soaring high enough at one point to brush the nape of his neck, unmarred by the previous evening.

“I’m cancelling everything for now,” Kaito replies, dragging his feet to the bathroom. “We’re going to the library.”

The person in the mirror follows his motions, but no more than that. Another familiar stranger when he hasn’t put anything on his face. He fleetingly thinks of his father and a car going off-track. A wave of nausea stops him from recalling anything but tendrils of smoke coalescing into a thin black line.

Shinichi gets up and retrieves his coat, as eager as a commanded dog. Kaito resigns himself as its blind owner. “I’ll join you.”

“Sure.”

***

The library’s archive strikes Kaito as similar to the docks in Yokohama, blues and greys lining themselves up into rows of imposing steel. The carpeted floor hushes his footsteps like leftover seafoam after the sea has slid off concrete. It’s overwhelmingly vast; the sort of space that makes you forget what you came in for. He browses through laminated pages of false-looking daily news from May 2003, their headlines unfound in his memory.

“His death anniversary is coming up,” Shinichi says, perusing through the privatized newspapers an aisle away.

“Fourteenth May,” Kaito responds with uncertainty.

“Sounds about right.”

“Isn’t your birthday right around then?”

Shinichi beams. “A little earlier than that. Fourth May.”

“The fifth would’ve been better.” Kaito gives a hollow chuckle. He opens another folder labelled for the fourteenth of May. This issue has a car wreck plastered across its front page, pixels of what was once a red Nissan. It declares Kuroba Toichi as the deceased, thirty-eight at the time. Pronounced dead at forty-six minutes past nine in the evening in Yokohama General Hospital despite an estimated time of death at half-past seven, the cause being thoracic hemorrhaging. His car had crashed into an on-ground pier cap, a high-speed collision from how its entire front had folded itself into the center. No traces of substances were found and it was ruled as an accident.

The rubies never existed, Kaito tells himself, the smell of trodden carpeting translating to canvases in his father’s study. He walked into the sight of Toichi painting, frazzled strokes of mud across a dark canvas before meticulously placing the reds, still wet and bright.

_That’s one scary painting you’ve got there, dad._

_I know, sorry. But it’s for a friend._

Toichi didn’t carry himself like an artist would. His study was too clean; you couldn’t tell he painted until the stringent scent of turpentine wafts through, mingling with wood varnish. The brushes were stowed away before anyone visited. Painting was a private affair for him, unwitnessed and nonexistent with the exception of Kaito’s occasional company. He was a precise man, and Kaito watched him lovingly blot red trailing down the ribs of slaughtered pigs, vanishing into the rusted mouth of a pope. His father had created flawless carnage with a serene smile. Kaito wonders if Numabuchi’s students draw blood the same way.

“He dreamt of opening his own gallery,” Kaito says. Shinichi nods silently. “Was his car a red Nissan?”

“I don’t remember the model, but it was definitely red.”

Shinichi slowly runs his knuckles along the sleeve of Kaito’s parka. He steps closer, standing no more than ten inches away. Kaito can feel each exhale against his nape. They both face a window panel and the stark white sky behind it. The glass captures their figures, boxed within the shelf’s lopsided shadow like two in a confession booth.

“Everything I’ve seen today... they’re as you’ve told me.”

“Yes.”

“And you’d never lie to me.”

“Never,” Shinichi exclaims. “Not to you.”

Kaito looks behind his shoulder. “Why me?”

Shinichi avoids him, lowering his head. Kaito feels a warm hand holding his, lifting leaden fingers up to Shinichi’s throat where the digits loosen before curling into place.

“I missed you,” Shinichi whispers the words against Kaito’s jaw. “And you’re not indifferent to that.”

Quiet, even breaths thrum against his jowl; a tranquilized animal incapable of fearing its forthcoming slaughter. Turning around, Kaito maintains his hold on Shinichi’s neck, counting the still-steady pulse under his palms.

“I’m not sure I can stay that way, Kudo,” Kaito warns, tightening his grip. 

Shinichi doesn’t move. “Then so be it.”

A couple walks into the archive and Kaito instantly pulls his hand back into his pocket. Shinichi returns to browsing the shelves, like nothing had happened.

“There’s an exhibition at Tamenaga tomorrow,” Kaito says once the couple is out of earshot. “I’m thinking of going. Alone.”

If Shinichi is flustered, Kaito can’t see it. “I trust you,” is all he has in response. He smiles softly as he exits the room.

***

When Kaito attends the Tamenaga Gallery’s exhibition, he’s without a disguise but a clear mind. Clear enough that he won’t need Shinichi to parse through reality for him. It’s a funny thought—reality. Is there a point in knowing which one is reality? Kaito doesn’t see any. Whatever Masuyama tells him tonight will probably be as real as it can be, and Shinichi doesn’t need to hear about this. 

The lone car drives along a highway and remains on-track. Tamenaga is bustling with attendees, glaringly bright and thick with the smell of perfume. Heavy limbs carry Kaito to where Masuyama is, idly observing an oil painting done by one of Numabuchi’s students. It’s an uninspiring feat of impressionism; thin swipes of pastel against a muted green offer a false sense of peace.

“It’s alright for a fresh graduate,” Kaito remarks. A waiter walks by with a tray of champagne, and Kaito takes a glass, swirling it to hide the tremble of his hands.

Masuyama’s posture turns alert. “It’s you again.”

“You’ve mistaken me for someone else.”

“A stranger wouldn’t have run away like you did.”

Kaito glances at Masuyama; emaciated and as restless as he is, wrinkles scoring every visible inch of skin while his back reels enduringly forward. Masuyama has his jaw clenched. His bloodshot eyes flit about the gallery’s corners, paranoid in their search but exposing the white crumbs just under his nose.

“You should clean yourself better the next time you chop a line, _Masuyama_ -san,” Kaito deflects. “Are you also with the Inagawa Group?”

Masuyama makes the amateur mistake of flinching. He sniffles openly, wide-eyed and naïve enough to be pitiable. “Who told you?”

“They’ve monopolized Tokyo’s supply—you’re not the only one at their mercy.” The crowd around them grows. Numabuchi is at the gallery’s front, greeting the executive attendees and fetching them drinks. “Say, what favor did they ask of you in return for the coke?”

“Fuck off,” Masuyama spits, giving Kaito a wary glare.

“Let’s try this another way, then. Why were you stalking Numabuchi?”

Kaito knows he’s being impatient, but Masuyama finally relents, ushering Kaito into a corner with frightened steps.

“Look, I don’t know how you found out, but Inagawa wants in on the art trade.”

“Don’t they already have a broker for that?”

“He’s no good anymore.” Masuyama’s voice is almost a whisper now. “They think he’s working with PSIA.”

Shinichi immediately comes to mind, followed by a shudder that ends in Kaito’s throat. He takes a sharp inhale. “And they chose you to help with that?”

“I’ve been an art dealer for longer than you’ve lived,” Masuyama sighs. “Besides, you saw what I saw—you know what Numabuchi does with his students. I’m hoping that’s enough material for them.”

“You’re working with a dangerous bunch,” Kaito taunts, though it comes across too quiet to be threatening.

He envisions the docks in Yokohama, a concrete maze of tall warehouses and stained ground where he had witnessed men after men die. Salted winds don’t carry the same acrid tang of rust as blood does. He tells Masuyama as such when it’s actually a self-reminder. The violence falls from his mouth impassively like reading lines from a teleprompter. “Fail them and they’d have you kneeling, head in a plastic bag, gutting you alive until you choke on your own blood. You will scream and breathe in that blood when they kick you off the docks into the sea.”

Numabuchi cuts through the crowd to his podium and the gallery darkens. A switch is turned on for a spotlight aimed at him. He waves excitedly to the applauding crowd, grabbing a microphone from a staff member before bowing. His forehead glistens with sweat.

“There’s a way for the Inagawa Group to immediately access Tamenaga.”

Masuyama turns to Kaito, still clapping his hands in distress. “How?”

“ _...I’d like to once again thank everyone for coming..._ ”

“He’s looking for an auctioneer,” Kaito speaks directly into Masuyama’s ear. “His students paint counterfeits for him, and he wants to sell them underground.”

A reprieve of noise is followed by the sonorous pop of a champagne bottle, foam spilling over the podium’s edge and Numabuchi’s shoes as the crowd applauds once more. Masuyama doesn’t join them, jaw slack when he stares at Kaito. “Counterfeits?”

“Yes, Francis Bacon counterfeits. They’re stored in the fifth warehouse on Yokohama’s docks.”

Masuyama’s mouth widens into a huge, grotesque smile, his teeth concealed by lips stretched to the point of splitting. It stays, permanently morphing his face while the crowd rushes past them, clamoring towards the podium where Numabuchi messily pours champagne into the guests’ empty glasses.

“ _...ladies and gentlemen, my dear friends..._ ”

Masuyama starts laughing, large gaping maw threatening to swallow the whole building. He slaps Kaito’s arm repeatedly, the bone in his wrist bulging out further with each swing.

“I’ll do it.”

Kaito forces himself to grin past the unease. The hand on his arm stills before clenching itself into a fist, fingers digging hard enough to make him wince. Masuyama draws in closer, breath soured by alcohol when he exhales. Numabuchi’s shadow grows larger as he throws his hands up into the air.

“And I won’t fail this time, Toichi.”

“ _...please, enjoy yourselves for the rest of the night!_ ”

***

A clear mind doesn’t spare Kaito from hand tremors, an empty stomach, or waking to the cold of his own sweat when he witnesses the execution scene in Yokohama again as a dream. The same violent, lucid vision heightening in frequency over the past month where he and Shinichi drown each other, night after night. Plastic deforms their faces into Pope Innocent’s between his butchery, sightless and pale. Gleaming red bursts from the seams of teeth and lips when a knife cuts jaggedly slow across the abdomen, pooling at the bottom of the plastic bag, sealed right where the chin starts. Any inhale would force itself back out and take the shape of a soundless scream. The gurgling would stop only when the sea breaks open to receive one of their bodies.

There was an instance where Kaito didn’t die. Shinichi removed the plastic bag and knelt down, gently cradling Kaito’s face against his own. He smiled with absolute bliss; eyes lowered as his hands tilt Kaito’s head upwards for a kiss. It tasted of rust.

He spends the next couple of days frantically clearing his office; every shred of physical evidence sent to the incinerator, every file encrypted into his hard drive before he destroys them. The clothes and makeup go into the bin. With Kido virtually dead, he leaves the apartment building and moves to the notary office, where the bathroom lights aren’t as bright and Kaito feels less worse for not remembering how to eat anything without throwing it back up. If the other clerks know that he’s holed himself up in the building’s storeroom, they don’t show it.

It’s the tenth of April, twenty-five minutes past ten in the evening. Kaito crawls out of the storeroom to wash himself. He avoids looking into the mirror as he buttons his shirt up, breath too loud in the quiet of the building. With ceaselessly quaking fingers, he scrolls through his contacts. The dial tone is reminiscent of a heartbeat while its background static drones on like the light rain outside.

He paces about the waiting room, nailbeds picked raw and smarting when the steam of freshly-poured tea meets weeping skin. Ran knocks on the office’s glass door with a stern look aimed Kaito’s way.

“Thank you for coming all the way here,” he greets. She walks past him, drenched umbrella leaving a water trail leading to the worn chairs of the waiting room. He follows suit and sits before her. Fatigue weighs on Ran’s shoulders as she slumped far enough forward to place clasped hands on her knees.

“We don’t do house calls, Kuroba-san,” she says firmly.

“I know.” Kaito can’t stop shaking his right leg and sighs at the incessant tap of his heels against the floor.

“You’ve called me here to strike a deal... related to one of my peers.”

There is no mistaking her acquaintance with Shinichi, except for the fact that Ran doesn’t trust in anything. She doesn’t touch the cup on her side of the table. Her eyes do not hold the same sheen; flattened disks dried over so as to perceive without distortion. Without that trust for him to hide behind, Kaito doesn’t feel as confident.

“Yes,” Kaito starts, “and I need your help.”

She glances at her briefcase. “Case files can’t just be handed over to civilians. Even if they’ve gone cold, and even if you’re the son of an involved party.”

“Kuroba Toichi was involved?”

Ran lowers her head in silence. She smooths over the creases of her pants while Kaito chews the side of his tongue like he wants to bite the chunk off; the air between them is heavy and nauseating. 

“The Inagawa Group is targeting Kudo and myself.” Kaito tries to convince her, leveling his voice as much as possible. “Mouri-san, I know you brought the files. It’ll be worth it for you to hand them over.”

Ran looks up upon hearing Inagawa’s name.

“Please,” Kaito adds. He slides a laptop towards Ran. The screen displays a compiled folder of Shinichi’s data on the Inagawa Group, Masuyama, and Kaito himself. 

“Don’t think too badly of me, Kuroba-san,” Ran mutters.

“Pardon?”

Ran’s face is solemn when she gently closes the laptop. She detaches the hard drive and chucks it into her briefcase before sprinting out of the waiting room, forcing Kaito to chase after her and tackle her to the ground. Kaito’s loose hold on Ran’s shoulders allows her to elbow him in the chest and she gets up while Kaito buckles over, winded. He launches himself forward on his knees, knocking Ran down once more and blindly latching onto one of her ankles. Kaito’s legs tremble when he stands up, lifting Ran’s right leg as he does so. He catches the other ankle before it manages to kick him in the stomach.

Kaito drags a struggling Ran to the office pantry, deaf to her screaming and the screech of furniture when she pulls desperately at them. Unable to think of anything else, he steps on Ran’s arms to immobilize her, focusing whatever weight he has on the soles of his feet while searching the drawers for a knife. He then drops onto his knees. Ran freezes when he presses the blade flat against her lips to silence.

“Don’t think too badly of me, Mouri.” The repeated line sounds weak falling from his mouth. “I don’t want to hurt you. Just tell me—please. I need to know about this case. It’s just another cold case to you, isn’t it? Isn’t what I’m offering you enough?”

He carefully slides the blade down Ran’s chin, letting it leach the warmth of her throat. Her breaths are shallow while blood roars in Kaito’s ears.

“Masuyama Kenzo’s gallery,” she whispers, “was suspected of fraud. Selling counterfeits.”

Ran’s gaze is unwavering as she swallows her own spit past the knife’s bevel. Raindrops on the window behind them cast their shadows around her body, crawling along the floor as maggots do toward rotten flesh.

“Kuroba Toichi was listed as the gallery’s director on paper, but his accounts don’t match Masuyama’s. The NTA alerted us. He was supposed to be brought in for questioning.” She pauses. There is no compassion in her voice when she tells Kaito, “I’m sorry for your loss. It was a terrible accident.”

Kaito removes the knife from Ran’s neck, staggering back to slump against a counter. “...and Masuyama?”

Ran inhales sharply to catch her breath. She lies still on the floor, arms spread open with palms facing the ceiling in defeat. Her expression belies the loss as she turns her head to glare at Kaito.

“Went missing until last December, where he was sighted with Inagawa’s underlings. Shinichi found him, and let him go. Just like that. Six months of work down the drain.”

Kaito recalls Shinichi sitting in his office, listening with an almost childlike intensity. He was relaxed that evening, exuberant to the point that Kaito thought him drunk when it might have been the relief of having collected his dues. Shinichi held Kaito not in persuasion, but in endearment; blinded affection having warped his ability to share. He had been patient.

“Masuyama is an underground auctioneer for the Tamenaga Gallery now,” Kaito speaks after a while. “They’re holding a private auction tomorrow evening. If you tell them that Kido sent you, you should be able to attend.”

“And what?” Ran chuckles dryly. “Successfully find a missing person? The warrant’s expired—he can’t be convicted of anything anymore.”

“It’s the same case, Mouri-san. Tamenaga’s private auctions will be Masuyama’s new counterfeit ring. The drive you took—all evidence you’ll need is there. I only ask of one thing.”

“You’ve asked one thing too many.”

Ran slowly rises to sit before holding onto a chair to pull herself back up in one fluid motion. She tidies her shirt and smooths the frayed strands of her hair. Kaito ignores her.

“Let Shinichi go from the agency.”

“We can protect both you and Shinichi. I’ll let your misdemeanor this evening slide for both our sakes.”

“You can’t protect us.”

“Then his blood will be on your hands. Are you ready for that?”

“I don’t need to when my blood is already on his.”

Ran stands tall over Kaito, pity in the slope of her shoulders. “What is he to you?”

In the forefront of Kaito’s mind, there was Shinichi; folded limbs and curtains billowing behind him in the warmth of a setting sun. An apparition that can touch and embrace the yawning years between them, lips closed in a placid smile. Terror is evident in neither of their faces when the ocean threatens to swallow them whole; with confirmation of existence comes the privilege of taking it away. They’ve earned the right to.

The answer finds itself uttered like a prayer. “A close friend of mine.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my beta: mmmm this is 50 shades rewritten  
> me: sto p


	6. A Savior Come My Way

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh my god i keep forgetting to update this weekly......... have the end of this fic thank u for following it :')))
> 
> BUT BEFORE THE END.. a lil interlude :>

**interlude.**

**A Savior Come My Way**

In the vastness of Tokyo’s twenty-three wards,  memory slipped through the fissures of brain tissue faster than water on tempered glass . October’s clouds loomed over towers like darkened sand when the tide falls; a persistent weight in the chest as one went through the motions of death, water sloshing about the lungs with every footstep. A method to murder is optional, Shinichi thought, walking through a dingy alley whereby stains once belonged to a body. A method is but a means to a fixed end.  There could only be so many ways to wash a film before you get the same image again, only colored under a different light. 

A smile caught his eye, small with lips pulled back to show teeth. Unkempt hair tousled further by wind to conceal a gaze Shinichi once stared back into for hours. The tide rose and with it, the complete dispersion of seventeen years’ worth of living, failed memory giving him a sense of shipwrecked loss brought in crashing waves.

When the sea had tired itself, he looked out the horizon of concrete and steel to a past-lived dream. A spectre; flushed cheeks and pale arms pressed against his own, something akin to heat when it drew close enough that Shinichi could tell where white stopped and amber flowed into black against the afternoon sun.  He wondered if he’d ever find anything as haunting. 

Shinichi lifted his arm like  the ascension of a guillotine . A simple greeting would be enough, he thought, shouting a name that rolled off his tongue  as something rusted .

Warm amber looked back at him and Shinichi saw devotion .

***

PSIA’s archive was musty from aged heaters, a sealed-off room stifled by aisles of manila folders tucked into plastic compartments. Shinichi put down his bag and sat in a corner, flipping through cold case files for the trainees to go through before arriving at a familiar name. The photographs were without mercy; Toichi’s mangled body spilled forth across his car’s dashboard, painting its interior the same red as the rust creeping along the edges of Yokohama Bay’s bridge. Shinichi traced his finger across black print. Crashing waves brought him to places he’d been, people he’d seen, the sea seemingly lightyears away from his dangling feet.

When he saw Inagawa’s courier, the pieces fell into place. A picture unwound quietly in his mind; dark skies of late spring to accompany the scent of salt and iron, slate against white shirts. Smoke would rise urgently in thick whips from a distant car crash, the scattered glass like soap suds on marred arms. Shinichi hid behind his partner, quietly drawing his gun to provoke the courier into further action.

He pored over his files while the other men flocked to the emergency room’s entrance as if to guilt him. What they hadn’t understood was that Shinichi found the situation entirely just; no sacrifice would be large enough for a syndicate as large as the Inagawa Group, and Shinichi had only created a choice for himself when no one provided any. He needed Masuyama Kenzo alive and as starved as anything alive could be.

Ran stood smaller than ever in the archive’s doorway, hands crossed under her chest as she kept her disappointed gaze lowered.

“Shinichi,” she called, “I’m transferring you to the First Department.”

Shinichi saw it coming. The emotions flattened out to a blunt shock and he sighed. “Was it my fuck-up with Inagawa’s case?”

“ _ You let them go _ , Shinichi. You let Inagawa’s men escape and brought ours back  _ half-dead _ .”

Ran’s face glowed livid, blood finally pumping through skin that had been growing sallower by the day. She seemed alive for the first time in a while. It struck Shinichi as humorous, how she tinkered daily with death yet crumbled over the slightest speck of red in her home. A government agency should never be anyone’s home.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t help Shiratori in time,” he lied.

“This is the third time you’ve fucked up on-site in two months. And you’ve been making more jumps lately, Shinichi, jumps that cannot be  _ explained _ . My men will  _ die _ just because you want to prove your theories right.”

The men would die either way, Shinichi mused, not bothering to interrupt Ran. She had lost the moment her faith was decidedly placed in a deteriorating state instead of him. Trust wasn’t complimentary and she hadn’t paid her dues.

Ran added, “If it were up to me, I’d have you surrender your badge.”

“When’s the transfer?” Shinichi asked innocently.

“Effective immediately.”

***

Wiling away the snow in Ginza’s hazy bars, Shinichi planned a courtship. If a method for murder were optional, all he needed was collaboration. His ribs rattled violent in his skin as he walked up to the only nameless door along the corridor. The cold rain was a perfect excuse for his tremors; hands empty and all too pliant in their lightness, upturned and begging.

When Kaito strangled him, it wasn’t entirely painful. In any form of worship was an expectation for salvation, and if Kaito didn’t want it—or if he wouldn’t offer it—death was as satisfying as any other end. Shinichi endured for as long as he could until the fingers around his throat rid themselves of fear, Kaito’s gaunt face apologetic in the light of his living room.

“I want to go home,” Kaito muttered under his breath.

But where would that be, Shinichi thought. The cab brought them to Kaito’s apartment building once more, grey and cold. He sat on the edge of Kaito’s bed and felt the mattress sway under their bodies.

“Do you hate me,” he asked, “for making you remember?”

Kaito pressed his face into the pillows; in shame or regret, Shinichi couldn’t tell. “I don’t,” he answered weakly.

“Then, do you want to kill me?” 

Kaito’s vacant stare was still glazed over when he turned his head, unfocused yet frustratingly honest as he blinked slowly in thought. “You wouldn’t fight back.”

Shinichi clambered onto the bed, draping himself over Kaito’s withdrawn figure to wind his arms around Kaito’s waist. He didn’t know if Kaito would remember any of this come morning, so he took what he could, relishing in how the heart against his left cheek beat slow and sure. Kaito was right; like cattle awaiting slaughter, Shinichi couldn’t fight back. He couldn’t find it in him when he knew of what was to come. Pope Innocent had two carcasses, after all. It disgusted him to know he wanted so much; to kill and be killed, one and the same as he saw his own desire reflected back in the rot of flayed flesh on canvas. 

“You trust me too much, Kaito,” Shinichi whispered, too quiet for the other to catch. Shinichi himself wasn’t sure of the truth in his words. He saw an end he couldn’t justify on his own and had placed all his cards on the table; another bet after would be impossible. So he believed, trusted, held faith.

But Shinichi had missed faith. He missed gazing into eyes that would ask to be beckoned forth in turn .


	7. Running Up That Hill

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes im gay enough to use this as a title in fact it is the canonical bgm

**epilogue.**

**Running Up That Hill**

The rain worsens from when Ran had left the notary office. Kaito goes through his belongings like something mechanical; a wind-up toy clacking by its own along the halls. He leaves a resignation letter for the other office clerks to find Monday morning, shifting the furniture back in place before cleaning the storeroom. Once he’s cleared his presence from the building’s surveillance footage, Kaito gathers his electronics into a plastic bag, bashing them with the back of a chair. He throws the bag out with the rest of the building’s trash. 

With nothing on his person, Kaito hails a cab to Shinichi’s apartment. In a downpour, water cascades slowly across glass like it’s trying to defy its own physics, meandering from the bottom of the car’s window every time it gets too close. The lights don’t reach him anymore, dim and distant as buildings blur themselves into an indiscernible blue mass. It’s three in the morning.

“Working overtime?” the driver asks. A picture of his daughter hangs from the rearview mirror. Kaito doesn’t remember his father carrying anything of the sort in his car.

“A little bit,” Kaito says.

“It’s nice to go home after all that.”

Kaito slips his wallet under the cab’s seats, giving the driver all of his remaining cash with a plea for no questions.

The concept of home eludes Kaito, who can only imagine cold bedsheets and the metallic rise of vapor from a hot shower. He grasps at tranquility like hands searching through smoke, finding obsessive desire looping on itself; a lasting series of images turned formula. A car leads to the docks as long as a river leads to sea. Knowing desire to be just as permanent,  Kaito’s uncertain grip on reality grows less frightening.

Shinichi opens the door with a satisfied smile. “That’s quick of you,” he compliments.

“You’re coming with me to Tamenaga’s private auction tomorrow,” Kaito announces, hanging his jacket. “I’ll need one of your suits. And your gun—where do you keep it?”

“Slow down—”

“Don’t bring your phone there. Turn it off and leave it here if you can. And don’t pick up if Mouri calls.”

Shinichi’s face falls, looking away as Kaito walks past him to the living room. “You met with Ran?”

Kaito doesn’t answer, sinking further into the sofa as he stares at the floor. It’s cold enough that he can’t feel his toes anymore,  the digits having detached from his consciousness to look like someone else’s . Shinichi tosses him a change of clothes and Kaito unbuttons his shirt to reveal a bruise forming off-center on his chest. It’s painless, even under the hard press of Shinichi’s thumb. Stark green veins cover the width of his shoulders like a cadaver left out in the sun. His stomach threatens to collapse against his spine, a hunger pang that has been curdling for days.

Shinichi stands before him silent and still, all sense of previous coyness gone in favor of something Kaito can’t place. He cranes his neck upwards as if to implore, the hand on his chest now tracing the line of his sunken cheeks.

“Did you know all along?” Kaito asks.

“I know enough.”

Kaito watches as Shinichi’s eyes pause on his parted lips, knee knocking into his own.  The touch speaks of greed but nothing else follows . 

There is a point at which a cornered animal feels compelled to cannibalize itself in abandon of defense ; a total loss of conscience. Kaito grits his teeth, clutching at the fabric of Shinichi’s shirt. “Stop fucking  _ watching  _ me like that—like I owe you something.”

“No,” Shinichi replies. “You don’t owe me anything.”

“I have done everything I can for you. The least you could do is tell me what you want.” Kaito loosens his fingers before adding, “Please.”

Shinichi kisses like he wants to get out of his skin; persistent and desperate, pushing hard enough to break teeth. Kaito can feel him shivering, knees buckling into the sofa. Hands remain on the back of his head, eventually sliding to the nape of his neck where they stay, paralyzed. Shinichi rests his forehead on Kaito’s shoulder.

“I don’t know what I want,” Shinichi whispers weakly.

“So you’re relying on the slim chance that I want the same thing.”

“Yes,” Shinichi answers. “I’m sorry.”

Kaito lets his arms fall onto Shinichi’s thighs. A car would always be at its loudest before the moment of impact; desire works the same. When the dust settles, their limbs would be no different from glass shards and metal scraps. Red would reduce itself back to a color. Kaito wishes for that. He wishes for the haunting to stop.

“I don’t want to sleep on the couch tonight,” Kaito mumbles, closing his eyes as he leans into Shinichi. “And I’m hungry. Really hungry.”

Shinichi laughs. “Of course you are.”

***

Sleek cars line Ginza’s sidewalks; it’s a dry Saturday evening with slight winds, warm enough that one would only need a shawl between the parking lot and Tamenaga’s entrance. Spread amongst the extravagantly dressed auction attendees are what he assumes to be PSIA officers, dull-garbed and awkwardly isolated from each other. Ran enters the building. 

The gallery’s rooftop is blissfully vacant. Kaito leans over the railing, watching familiar faces smoke outside the building while Shinichi clicks his pistol’s magazine into place.

“Have you ever needed to use that?” Kaito asks.

Shinichi glances at the weapon with disinterest. “Thrice in the last decade,” he replies.

“Did they all die?”

“Just the one.”

Kaito hears Shinichi step closer. “And Mouri?”

“Never killed anyone in duty, but never forgot her gun.” Shinichi upturns Kaito’s empty hand. “Do you know how to use one?”

“Theoretically,” Kaito admits, somewhat embarrassed.

Shinichi guides Kaito’s fingers into place around the pistol’s grip, tapping at his right ankle to widen his stance. His back is pressed against Shinichi’s chest as their arms lift in unison. Kaito notes the trained stillness of Shinichi’s posture compared to the tremors running along his limbs. He stops breathing when Shinichi pulls his finger along with the trigger to shoot at pitch black, hands left cold when the pistol is taken away.

“How much longer do we have?” Shinichi asks while tucking the pistol into its holster on Kaito’s hip, lingering after. Kaito feels the tips of Shinichi’s shoes pressed against his heel.

“Ten minutes until Numabuchi gets onstage.”

“Do I come with you?” 

“No,” Kaito says, adamant as he steps away to face Shinichi. “I want you seated with the attendees.”

Shinichi retreats with reluctance, maybe a little pensive in the tight line of his smile. He’s standing so stiffly that it almost warranted pity, but Kaito needs an excuse to not be seen when his shaky hands take aim. 

“The safety is already off,” Shinichi tells him. “It recoils pretty strong, so shoot with both arms. Get ready to fall after.”

They part at the first floor’s fire exit, Shinichi joining the throng of guests into the main hall while Kaito remains by the exit’s second door, leading to the backstage area of a modestly-sized proscenium with dark navy curtains. He closes the door behind him, soundless.

The proscenium is lit up by a spotlight at its center as the attendees welcome Numabuchi with a thundering applause. From behind the right wing’s curtain, Kaito sees Ran at the farthest back row, unabashedly glowering at Masuyama’s frail figure strutting onto the stage with one of the counterfeit paintings.

What little Kaito can see of Shinichi’s face is despondent in the harsh white of the spotlight’s reflection, a most apathetic gaze following the painting as it’s shown off to the audience. Kaito has never thought Shinichi to be good at gambling; his features announce his defeat long before he shows his hand. It irks Kaito to know that he is already considered a lost bet; he has reveled in Shinichi’s blind faith, only for the latter to rescind it in the form of a weak semi-automatic pistol.

Kaito widens his stance with a step back and steadies his gun. He doesn’t think of blood on the docks or his father’s car when Masuyama notices him, face stuck in permanent glee as the bullet shoots straight and true to the midpoint of Masuyama’s laugh-crinkled eyes. Red splashes over the stage’s left from the back of his now-deformed head, dribbling fresh and bright over Pope Innocent’s butchered carcasses and spattered across the front of Numabuchi’s suit. Both men collapse, but Kaito can only hear himself fall onto his knees. The gunshot fizzles out to a shrill ringing in his ears.

The attendees rush out of the hall in a muted stampede, mouths wide open in horror but void of sound as they move like a wake across the sea. Their bodies flow through a sluice split where Ran stands with her gun aimed at Kaito. He notices her grip tightening and doesn’t breathe when she gets wrangled to the floor, the back of Shinichi’s coat bright for an instant where a dull flash of fire erupted from it. Kaito spurs his leaden legs to lift him off the ground and run down the aisle.

Ran mouths something at Kaito—he can’t make out the words, blearily processing her wrath in the form of Shinichi leaning heavily into his hold, warm where blood leaks out of a hole in his left shoulder. She raises her gun once more, and Kaito hurriedly swats it off her hands before she can pull the trigger. 

He takes the chance to stagger out of the hall towards the gallery’s parking lot, arms burning as Shinichi clutches on them while the ringing in his ears only grows louder by the second. Kaito spots an attendee trying to enter their car and rushes to them. It must be a sight; Kaito can only feel the blood-soaked shirt in his hold. He doesn’t know how much of it is actually there in plain sight. The attendee runs, leaving the car door open. 

A shot barely misses Kaito’s foot as he lowers Shinichi into the passenger seat. He jumps at the heat, finding Ran approaching the lot’s entrance, glaring at Kaito through the barrel of her gun.

“ _ I won’t miss this time! _ ” she shouts, breaking through the flatline noise of Kaito’s shocked eardrums.

Ran steadies her arms again, and Kaito dashes around the back of the car to the driver’s seat. He hasn’t even closed the door when he starts the engine, frantic. He stomps on the accelerator, forcing a shrill revving out of the car as he turns sharply out of the parking lot. He makes the mistake of meeting Ran’s eyes when his side of the car zooms by her at point blank. 

She knows better than to chase after them, vanishing from the rearview mirror as she regroups with the other officers. But Kaito keeps driving, like something possessed; his right leg is trembling as it tries to keep its weight on the gas pedal. Ginza looks ablaze in the dry evening as the car speeds through glittering shopfronts, no longer discernible as they coalesce into whips of light. Kaito glances sideways to find Shinichi staring at him.

“What are you going to do now?” Shinichi asks, voice strained. His left arm lies limp on his side.

Kaito doesn’t answer. He focuses on the weight of the steering wheel instead, like it’ll give him a destination. But there’s nothing to grasp onto anymore, nowhere for the two of them to go. 

Yokohama Bay gleams in the distance, the towering arches of its bridge illuminated by headlights and traffic. The scenery hasn’t changed from last month, last year, or seventeen years ago. For something to haunt, it needs faith, and with that very same faith, it stops. An emotion is temporary; faith is permanent, and he feels the need to tell Shinichi as such. A destination is now unnecessary. 

“Whatever you want me to,” Kaito replies, the words coming easy. “I trust you.”

Shinichi gives Kaito a relieved smile. “Finally.”

Bloodied hands lunge for the steering wheel. The screech of rubber against asphalt comes first, and then, the acrid smell of fuel.

***

Between cold reality and intrusive montages of his own memory, Kaito realizes that none of it matters, in the end. Imprinted in the scenes of his own mind is something bare, almost a constant as it endures . A car leads to the docks as long as a river leads to sea. Desire consumes everything in its wake like an act of profound mercy.

What Kaito hasn’t known until now is how comforting mercy feels; a sensory overdrive that pushes everything to the back of his mind. He hears the sirens draw near and every inhale stabs deeply from under his ribs . The glass shards are scattered like sand and wind chimes around him as he clambers over the console to the passenger seat, wholly awake and aware. 

Shinichi turns slowly to look at Kaito. His hair is matted by blood and Kaito feels the same shade of red dry on his own face. Every bead of sweat stings where it trickles past shrapnel, lodged deep enough to break skin.

Kaito leans in as close as he can, balancing himself on shaky arms. He laughs helplessly. “Is it over?” he asks.

Shinichi’s hand reaches for Kaito’s shirt, pulling him down into a kiss. The cloying taste of metal fills Kaito’s mouth. Shinichi clings to him still when they part, like sparks do to dry grass. 

“Yeah,” Shinichi answers, breaths shallow against Kaito’s neck as he tries to speak past the blood and spit. He caresses the back of Kaito’s head. “I think it’s over now.”

When Kaito closes his eyes, he thinks he can hear the waves rolling softly into sand. The sea breaks open for both of them, this time. The tide will lower and perhaps, Kaito thinks, drown all remnants of him with it; leave nothing behind on the shore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well weve reached the end folks.........so what of them in the end? who knows.. That Is Up To You but this is it ! they crash and makeout . this was my Vision. this has turned so Differently yet not really from what i originally planned !!!! 
> 
> big thanks again to my beta, vivi, for proofreading This Monster as well as my lovely friends keren and xia, and my sister, for reading this with the Scarcest knowledge of detective conan... ilu all <33


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